CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.11-12.5
The Standard
Analyze how the text structures information or ideas into categories or hierarchies, demonstrating understanding of the information or ideas.
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts · Reading Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects 6—12
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students map how a science or technical text groups related details and places broad ideas above narrower ones. They explain how sections, headings, and subheadings contribute to the whole.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Given a complex passage, students can create an accurate outline or tree diagram showing main categories, subcategories, and supporting details. They can justify each placement with text evidence.
Common Misconceptions
- Students often treat every heading as equally important or copy the table of contents without tracing relationships. They may confuse sequence, cause and effect, or comparison with a category hierarchy.
How to Assess It
- Give students a one-page technical article with headings removed. Ask them to add two headings and three subheadings, then explain one placement.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Print and cut a technical article into headings and paragraphs, then have pairs arrange the pieces into a labeled hierarchy.
Ask students to write: Which category controls the most information, and what evidence links it to two subcategories?
Run a sorting relay where teams place detail cards under category and subcategory labels, earning points for accurate explanations.
Compare a car repair manual's contents page with one procedure, tracing how system, component, and task levels guide a mechanic.
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Printable RST.11-12.5 Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.11-12.5, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.
Download the worksheetLearning progression
Where This Standard Sits
See the whole path on the Reading: Science & Technical Subjects progression map.
Before This Standard
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Related Standards
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.5
Analyze how a text uses structure to emphasize key points or advance an explanation or analysis
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.7.5
Analyze the structure an author uses to organize a text, including how the major sections contribute to the whole and to the development of the ideas.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.5
Analyze the structure an author uses to organize a text, including how the major sections contribute to the whole and to an understanding of the topic.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.8.3
Analyze how a text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, ideas, or events (e.g., through comparisons, analogies, or categories).
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